It depends

In recent weeks, the debate in Britain over the wearing of the niqab or face veil has crossed the north Atlantic to Canada. It came on the heels of claims that the leaders of the large Indo-Canadian population in British Columbia were turning a blind eye to widespread domestic violence. Last year saw an acrimonious dispute in Ontario over whether Muslims could use Islamic sharia courts to settle family disputes.

Notice what all three of those examples have in common.

In themselves, fights over cultural practices and symbols are nothing new in Canada…What is new about the latest arguments is an underlying tension between some cultural practices of recent immigrants and the mainstream values of Canadian liberal democracy, such as sex equality.

It’s too bad pols and journalists so often frame the issue that way. It seems to me the point isn’t that the values are mainstream or that they’re Canadian (or British, or Dutch, or German, or French, or Italian), but that they’re egalitarian, universalist, justice-based, and the like. ‘Mainstream’ is the wrong word to invoke, because sex inequality is mainstream in many other places, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good thing in those places. It’s funny how popular those coercive conformist majoritarian words tend to be – as if no one had ever heard or known of a case where the majority was simply wrong. Majorities can get the facts wrong, and they can be morally wrong; ‘majority’ isn’t an inherently moral term. I suppose it’s natural for everyone to get confused about this in democracies, because it is the case that we are all subject to majority will; but the fact remains that number of votes doesn’t equate to accuracy on the one hand or justice on the other.

Multiculturalism has since sunk deep roots in government, reflected in everything from broadcasting to education policy…Almost half believe that immigrants should be free to maintain their cultural and religious practices. But a poll published this week reflected the new disquiet: when asked whether those practices should be tolerated if they infringe women’s rights, a large majority said No.

Well, there you go. Exactly. Free to maintain cultural and religious practices, good, but if they infringe women’s rights, not so good. That’s why it’s so misleading for people to keep churning out bromides about tolerance and cultural yakyak – because it depends. It depends on which cultural and religious practices we’re talking about, obviously, so blanket ‘yes lovely all should be permitted Kumbaya’ is not helpful. That awareness is starting to sink in, which is good. Maybe somebody should write a really good book about religious and cultural practices and how they affect women.

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9 Responses to “It depends”

It’s a question of rightful interference or what does it matter to anyone else? If a Sikh wears a turban, it matters to him, but not to anyone else. Ditto a Jew with his skullcap, a Muslim woman with her veil. It matters to her but it doesn’t matter to anyone else. (Though it may matter to an employer just as it would matter to mine if I turned up in a tracksuit.) Women’s rights, domestic violence, shutting down speech and expression – those matter to other people.

Well actually there is at least an argument that in the case of ‘a Muslim woman with her veil’ it does matter to anyone else: other Muslim women, for instance; women in general, for instance. There are such arguments in articles at B&W.

It’s not always easy or cut and dried, which things matter only to oneself and which matter to other people. The veil is a clear example of that.

Ohhhh – there are plenty. Although they would much prefer not to have it phrased so bluntly.

But the other point is that lots of people talk blithely about people being free to maintain their cultural and religious practices, without actually realizing that any of the practices might infringe women’s rights. That’s what’s beginning to sink in – belatedly.

I think the veil is a differant case to the skull cap turban ect it is quite often worn by moslem women on the orders of their husbands or fathers,therfore the veil can be seen as infringing womens rights? but on the other hand some women wear it volentarily so how does society deal with that.